Cost Reduction Effect Research Articles

Transport electrification: the effect of recent battery cost reduction on future emission scenarios

Although the rapid fall in the costs of batteries has made electric vehicles (EVs) more affordable and boosted their sales, EVs still account for only a fraction of total car sales. In the last years, the battery costs of electric vehicles have dropped faster than previously estimated in the empirical literature. As a result, future cost projections have been adjusted. The larger than expected reduction in costs also shows the uncertainty of battery cost development, which will affect the success of a transition to low-carbon transport. Integrated assessment models show that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is more challenging in the transport sector than in other sectors. Switching to EVs could significantly reduce passenger road-transport emissions. In this study, we test the sensitivity of the projected sales of EVs to different battery costs and climate policy futures. The model suggests that the effectiveness of policy incentives will strongly depend on the battery floor costs, as EVs only gain significant shares (15% or more) of global car sales within our model framework when battery costs reach 100 $/kWh or less. We therefore conclude that besides the pace of the battery costs decline, which has been rapid in the last years, it is important to understand the lower boundary of battery costs for modelling long-term global energy transitions.

Harmonic and power loss minimization in power systems incorporating renewable energy sources and locational marginal pricing

In composite expansion planning, improving the efficiency and power quality of power supplied from Renewable Energy Sources (RES) is highly essential. Therefore, this paper focuses on developing an optimal power flow optimization model for minimizing power loss and harmonics emanating from RES with emphasis on reducing their impact on the Locational Marginal Prices. In order to assess the magnitude of harmonics, grid modelling and simulation with RES such as wind and solar energy were carried out using the Electrical Transient Analyzer Program 12.6.0 software. The proposed mixed integer nonlinear programming mathematical model was solved using the Outer Approximation Algorithm solver in the advanced interactive multidimensional modelling system, and the efficiency of the model was tested on the modified IEEE 6 bus and 24 bus system. The results obtained from simulations reveal the efficiency of the proposed model in terms of effective cost reduction, nodal marginal price reduction, minimization of harmonic losses, and additional lines in the power system network.

A Study on Cost Reduction Effect of Drone Implementation in Traffic Survey

A Study on Cost Reduction Effect of Drone Implementation in Traffic Survey

The economic and environmental impacts of tax incentives for battery electric vehicles in Europe

Vehicle taxes and purchase subsidies have been used frequently to provide incentives for electric vehicle adoption. To examine the role of the incentives in reducing total ownership costs of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), increasing BEV sales, and obtaining environmental benefits from switching to BEVs, we carry out cost–benefit analyses and ordinary least square regressions. We study 10 pairs of BEVs and their internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) counterparts across 28 European countries from 2012 to 2014. The results show that, under the incentive schemes, the costs reduced by switching to large BEVs from their ICEV counterparts are larger than the costs reduced by switching to small BEVs from their ICEV counterparts. Owing to the cost-reduction effect, a 10% increase of the total tax incentive leads to an increase in the sales share of BEVs by around 3% on average. Finally, we find that it is still costly to use the tax incentives to reduce CO2 emissions and other environmental externalities through transport electrification, despite recent improvements in greening electricity generation and lowering battery costs.

Operating Cost Reduction of In-line Coagulation/Ultrafiltration Membrane Process Attributed to Coagulation Condition Optimization for Irreversible Fouling Control

This study examined the optimum coagulation conditions for reducing irreversible fouling during the in-line coagulation/ultrafiltration (UF) membrane process and assessed the decrease in operating cost. The coagulation conditions that generated charge-neutralization, sweep-flocculation, and under-dosing mechanisms were obtained by a jar-test, and a pilot-scale in-line coagulation/UF membrane process was operated under the coagulation conditions. Charge-neutralization and sweep-flocculation mechanisms reduced irreversible fouling effectively, and the under-dosing mechanism was able to reduce irreversible fouling only when flocs of a certain size or larger were formed. This revealed that floc size was a more important factor in reducing irreversible fouling than floc structure, and once initial cake layers were created by flocs of a fixed size, the structure of formed cake layers had only a minor effect on irreversible fouling. Regarding reduction in operating cost, 0.5 mg/L and 3 h, which were necessary to produce an under-dosing mechanism, were deemed the optimum coagulant dosage and coagulant injection time, respectively, to reduce irreversible fouling. In order to analyze the operating cost reduction effect, a pilot plant was operated under optimum operating conditions, and the total operating cost was approximately 11.2% lower than without in-line coagulation.

Oxide-Core Pt-Shell Electrocatalysts for PEFCs: Photochemical Preparation Using SnO2 Nanoparticles

Introduction Pt nano-particles dispersed on carbon black (Pt/C) are widely used as electrocatalysts for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). For the implementation of low-cost PEFCs, reducing the amount of expensive Pt is the important issue. Since the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurs on the surface of the Pt nano-particles, core-shell catalysts in which Pt atomic-layer shell is coated on metallic nano-particle core are desired in reducing the Pt usage. Although such core-shell catalysts exhibit very high mass activity compared with the commercial Pt/C, their durability still remains as a challenge (1). If expensive metals such as Au and Pd are used as the core, the cost reduction effect is also limited. According to previous studies, the durability of the PEFC electrocatalyst can be improved by using conductive oxides including SnO2 as an electrocatalyst support which has thermochemical stability under the PEFC cathode conditions (2-4). In principle, it is possible to develop electrocatalysts with both higher durability and ORR mass activity by employing such stable oxide as the core, instead of noble metal. Here, the objective of this study is to directly deposit Pt on SnO2 on an atomic level by applying a photochemical procedure towards the oxide-core Pt-shell electrocatalyst preparation. Experimental Vapor grown carbon fiber (VGCF-H), carbon nanotube (CNT), and graphitized carbon black (GCB) were applied as the conductive backbone (fillers) of the electrocatalysts. Nb-doped SnO­­2 or SnO2 was prepared on each carbon-based material via the ammonia co-precipitation, microwave homogeneous precipitation, and SnO2 sol impregnation. Pt deposition on SnO2 was made using photochemical procedure for on an atomic-level. Since this photochemical reaction occurs only on semiconductors, the selective Pt deposition on SnO2 may be possible. Support materials powders, H2PtClO6•6H2O, and HCOOH were added to ultrapure water, followed by stirring and irradiation of UV (and VIS) light in order to prepare Pt/SnO2/carbon-filler electrocatalysts. Nanostructure of the electrocatalysts obtained was observed by FE-SEM and STEM. ICP analysis was also made to quantify Pt loading. Electrochemical characterization of these electrocatalysts was carried out by half-cell measurements. Electrochemical surface area (ESCA) was measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV), and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity was derived from kinetically controlled current density (ik ) after the rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurement. Results and discussion Agglomeration of Pt nanoparticles could be suppressed by shortening UV irradiation time and reducing formic acid concentration, resulted in improved ECSA and mass activity. High-resolution STEM observation suggested that a part of Pt was deposited near an atomic level on the SnO2 surface which could be a Pt-shell of the electrocatalysts. SnO2 particle size was about 20 nm after the ammonia co-precipitation. We succeeded to prepare SnO2 core with a diameter of about 3 nm by applying the microwave homogeneous precipitation and the SnO2 sol impregnation (Figs. 1 and 2). In addition, it was revealed that dispersibility of SnO2 was improved by an activation treatment with HNO3 for carbon fillers.

El impacto de la exoneración de la nómina del comportamiento de costos del sector de la construcción civil de BM&FBovespa

<p>Among the various initiatives of the Brazilian Federal Government to overcome the economic crisis, what stands out is the incentive to legalize manual labor. Brazil is one of the countries with the highest incidence of payroll tax on workers. Thus, the objective of this research is to analyze the impact of payroll exemption on the behavior of costs of civil construction companies listed in BM&FBovespa. The hypo­thesis is that the behavior of costs is statistically different in the periods before and after the exemption of payrolls. As methodological procedures, we used linear regression and a t test to check for differences between the averages of the values before and after the exemption. The data analysis panel identified the <em>sticky </em>behavior of costs over time in the industry. The results obtained do not reject null the hypothesis when observing the behavior of costs based on CPV / RLV and CT / RLV data. Therefore, it is not possible to say that there is a significant difference between the periods before and after the payroll exemption and consequent effective cost reduction.</p>

RETRACTED: Cognitive Deep Neural Networks prediction method for software fault tendency module based on Bound Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract Identification of module fault tendency is greatly important for cost reduction and software development effectiveness. A DNN (Deep Neural Networks) prediction method for software fault tendency module based on BPSO (Bound Particle Swarm Optimization) dimensionality reduction was proposed in the paper. Firstly, the calculation framework of the DNN prediction algorithm for software fault tendency module based on BPSO dimensionality reduction and 21 software fault measurement indexes as well as the normalization processing method of these index values were provided in the paper; then, the particle swarm optimization algorithm was adopted for the dimensionality reduction of software fault data set, and the particle position was represented by binary (0 or 1) character string to simplify data processing; then, the DNN algorithm was adopted to predict software fault tendency module; finally, the simulation experiments were implemented in four standard test sets—PC1, JM1, KC1 and KC3 to verify the performance advantage of the algorithm.

Improvement of Laser-Crystallized Silicon Film Quality via Intermediate Dielectric Layers on a Glass Substrate.

The laser crystallization (LC) of amorphous silicon thin films into polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) thin films on glass substrates is an active field of research in the fabrication of Si-based thin film transistors and thin film solar cells. Efforts have been, in particular, focused on the improvement of LC technique. Adhesion promoters of the crystallized Si thin films at the glass interface play a crucial role in the stability and device performance of fabricated structures. The crystalline Si thin films are required to be produced free of contamination risks arising from impurity diffusion from the glass substrate. Moreover, it is preferable to fabricate pc-Si thin films at temperatures as close as possible to the ambient temperature for an effective cost reduction. In this work, we demonstrate the successful use of a commercially available nanosecond pulsed laser marker at 1064 nm wavelength for Si crystallization at ambient conditions compared to the common method of pre-elevated substrate temperatures used in continuous wave laser irradiation technique. As a result, our technique results in a better energy balance than that in previous works. The second main purpose of this study is to enhance the crystallinity of Si thin films and to determine the best choice of an intermediate dielectric layer (IDL) comparatively among four thin buffer layers, namely, SiNx, SiO2, ZnO, and TiO2, for the sake of obtaining improved adhesion and larger crystalline domains as compared to that on a direct Si–glass interface. The crystalline qualities of samples containing IDLs of SiNx, SiO2, ZnO, and TiO2 were compared via Raman spectroscopy analysis and electron backscatter diffraction method against the direct Si–glass interface reference. The analyses quantitatively showed that both the crystallinity and the domain sizes can be increased via IDLs.

Analyzing the Economic Effects of Past Mobile Network Sharing Deals for Future Network Deployment

The increase in data traffic calls for investment in mobile networks; however, the saturating revenue of mobile broadband and increasing capital expenditure are discouraging mobile operators from investing in next-generation mobile networks. Mobile network sharing is a viable solution for operators and regulators to resolve this dilemma. This research uses a difference-in-differences analysis of 33 operators (including 11 control operators) to empirically evaluate the cost reduction effect of mobile network sharing. The results indicate a reduction in overall operating expenditure and short-term capital expenditure by national roaming. This finding implies that future technology and standards development should focus on flexible network operation and maintenance, energy efficiency, and maximizing economies of scale in radio access networks. Furthermore, mobile network sharing will become more viable and relevant in a 5G network deployment as spectrum bands are likely to increase the total cost of ownership of mobile networks and technical enablers will facilitate network sharing.

Recycling mechanisms and policy suggestions for spent electric vehicles' power battery -A case of Beijing

Abstract In recent years, electric vehicles have developed rapidly in China, and recycling a large number of their spent power batteries will become a substantial challenge in the near future. However, the specific mechanisms and policies for recycling spent power batteries have still not been established in China. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose reward-penalty mechanisms and policies, and test their impacts on power battery recycling by using a Staklberg game theory based model. In the model, three single recycling channel modes and three competitive dual recycling channel modes were considered respectively. Furthermore, the total social welfare is used as the indicator to select the optimal recycling modes, which includes participants' profit, consumer surplus, government's supervision cost, energy-saving and carbon emission reduction effect. The obtained analysis results show that: (i) the intensive reward-penalty mechanism is more suitable for higher recycling rate modes, otherwise it may cause benefit losses, and thus, setting a reasonable minimum recycling rate as benchmark for reward-penalty mechanism is critically important; (ii) Environmental awareness has significant impacts on social benefits of power battery recycling; (iii) M&R (mode with competition between manufacturer and retailer in the recycling channels) has obvious advantages among these six recycling modes.

Overcoming the Barriers to the Diffusion of Sustainability Reporting in Italian LGOs: Better Stick or Carrot?

The role of public-sector organizations (PSOs) in promoting the agenda of sustainability accounting and accountability is not often adequately considered. In the public sector realm, local governments are close to their communities and thus have a particularly important role to play in the pursuit of sustainability goals. Hence, further research is needed to understand if Local Government Organizations (LGOs) are using reporting tools to promote sustainable development. The empirical data showed that the Sustainability Report (SR) is not being as widely used as in past years. Over time, the majority of Italian municipalities have not initiated or continued sustainability reporting due to some barriers including cost reduction, voluntariness, and low SR effectiveness. The findings suggest the popularity of SRs in Italy is falling and the SR tool appears to be “mere trend reporting based on descriptive indicators leading to decreasing interest from internal and external audiences”. The carrot has been unsuccessful. Perhaps the implementation of mandatory requirements could alternatively be used as a stick.

Municipal Mergers and Cost Reduction Effects

Municipal Mergers and Cost Reduction Effects

A Study of Digital Payments

The challenges and emergence of a global economy and a Digital First World has created financial disruptions in e-commerce and e-business around the globe. The collaborations of banks with Fintech companies have led to digitalization being an important component of their business and marketing strategy. The application of e-banking has been demonstrated as an effective cost reduction, risk management and provides quick services to the customers. Nowadays, e-banking services have already ensured opportunities to reduce expenditures on physical structures. However, in some previous studies it has been showed that e-banking has helped banks and financial institutions to reduce costs, increase revenue, and increase customer experience. With the growth of digital banking in India, it is significant to analyze the actual situation of customer satisfaction in the banking sector. This article evaluates the various new digital banking technologies in the banking sector of India which have gained momentum after various banking reforms like the digital financial inclusion, demonetization and GST implementation. It also identifies the relationship between the increasing trends in the usage of electronic banking and a customer paradigm shift from traditional cash and paper-based cheque payment systems and evaluates various challenges and opportunities in the implementation of digitalization. This research was carried out using multiple methodologies.

Cost Reduction and Business Strategy Matters to Human Resource Outsourcing? A Validation by HR Experts from Government Link Companies (GLC’s).

The phenomenon of outsourcing has spawned a rich body scholarly reseach in sveral decades. However, the answer to one of the pertinent question has remained elusive: Does cost reduction and business strategy really matters to the human resource outsourcing impacts. Looking at this question it is important for the organization to embark on the practice of human resource outsourcing to save operating cost and remain competitive. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the effects of cost reduction and business starategy towards human resource outsourcing impacts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed and the top management in Malaysian Government Link Companies (GLC’) is the unit of analysis. The findings revelaved that, both variables are significant statistically and non statically i.e from the experts opinion. Finally, the study also provides useful directions for future research, HR Practitioners and policy maker particularly in managing and organizing human reseouce matters.

Formation Flight Mechanics and its Integrated Logistics

Abstract This paper presents an investigation of the fuel cost reduction effects of formation flight when applied to two different type aircraft. The first case is a general aviation case with a Cessna 152 and a Cessna 182 in staggered formation. The second case is a commercial transport with two Bombardier Dash-8 in staggered formation. The method used to analyze the induced drag is a vortex lattice method which keeps both aircraft in trim throughout the simulation. The total drag reduction for the trailing aircraft was found to be 4.4 % and 8 % for the two cases respectively this would reflect in fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions. In order to assess the effects of the cost of setting up the formation, a trade study in operational logistics was made for a sample route where flights between Stockholm/London and Linkoping/Amsterdam joined up mid-flight for a fractional formation flight. Formation flying with its integrated logistics can be optimized and sustained for this route, assuming fuel represent about 50 % of the direct operating costs of air cargo freight transportation.

Employee Treatment and Contracting with Bank Lenders: An Instrumental Approach for Stakeholder Management

Adopting an instrumental approach for stakeholder management, we focus on two primary stakeholder groups (employees and creditors) to investigate the relationship between employee treatment and loan contracts with banks. We find strong evidence that fair employee treatment reduces loan price and limits the use of financial covenants. In addition, we document that relationship bank lenders price both the levels and changes in the quality of employee treatment, whereas first-time bank lenders only care about the levels of fair employee treatment. Taking a contingency perspective, we find that industry competition and firm asset intangibility moderate the relationship between good human resource management and bank loan costs. The cost reduction effect of fair employee treatment is stronger for firms operating in a more competitive industry and having higher levels of intangible assets.

Cash Hedging in a Supply Chain

We study hedging cash flow risks in a supply chain where firms invest internal funds to improve production efficiencies. We offer a decomposition framework to capture the cost reduction and flexibility effect of hedging. It allows us to understand how a firm’s hedging choice depends on its supply chain partner’s decision, and how such interaction is affected by supply chain characteristics such as market size, cash flow volatility and correlation. When firms’ cash flows are independent of each other, they are more likely to hedge with a larger market size. When cash flows are correlated, the impact of market size and volatility on firms’ hedging decisions presents multiple patterns, contingent on whether their risks amplify or offset each other.

Integrating labor awareness to energy-efficient production scheduling under real-time electricity pricing: An empirical study

With the penetration of smart grid into factories, energy-efficient production scheduling has emerged as a promising method for industrial demand response. It shifts flexible production loads to lower-priced periods to reduce energy cost for the same production task. However, the existing methods only focus on integrating energy awareness to conventional production scheduling models. They ignore the labor cost which is shift-based and follows an opposite trend of energy cost. For instance, the energy cost is lower during nights while the labor cost is higher. Therefore, this paper proposes a method for energy-efficient and labor-aware production scheduling at the unit process level. This integrated scheduling model is mathematically formulated. Besides the state-based energy model and genetic algorithm-based optimization, a continuous-time shift accumulation heuristic is proposed to synchronize power states and labor shifts. In a case study of a Belgian plastic bottle manufacturer, a set of empirical sensitivity analyses were performed to investigate the impact of energy and labor awareness, as well as the production-related factors that influence the economic performance of a schedule. Furthermore, the demonstration was performed in 9 large-scale test instances, which encompass the cases where energy cost is minor, moderate, and major compared to the joint energy and labor cost. The results have proven that the ignorance of labor in existing energy-efficient production scheduling studies increases the joint energy and labor cost, although the energy cost can be minimized. To achieve effective production cost reduction, energy and labor awareness are recommended to be jointly considered in production scheduling.

Photochemical Preparation of Pt Electrocatalysts on SnO2 Support for PEFCs

In polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), Pt nano-particles dispersed on carbon black (Pt/C) are generally used as electrocatalysts. Reducing the amount of expensive Pt is the important issue for the implementation of low-cost PEFCs. Since the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurs only on the surface of the Pt nano-particles, core-shell catalysts in which Pt monolayer shell is loaded on metallic nano-particles core are effective in reducing the Pt usage. Although such core-shell catalysts with Au or Pd cores exhibit very high activity compared with the commercial Pt/C, their durability still remains as a challenge (1). The cost reduction effect is also limited if we use expensive metal cores. According to previous studies, the durability of the PEFC electrocatalyst can be improved by using SnO2 as a electrocatalyst support which has thermochemical stability under the PEFCs cathode conditions (2-4). Therefore, it is, in principle, possible to develop electrocatalyst with both higher durability and ORR activity by employing such stable oxide as the core instead of noble metal. Here, the objective of this study is to deposit Pt on SnO2 at an atomic level by applying a photochemical procedure. Experimental Vapor grown carbon fiber (VGCF-H) was applied as the conductive backbone of the electrocatalysts. SnO­­2 was prepared on the VGCF-H (SnO2/VGCF-H) by the ammonia co-precipitation method. As a procedure to deposit Pt on the SnO2 nano-particles at an atomic level, photochemical procedure was applied to reduce Pt ions by irradiating ultraviolet (and visible) light having energy exceeding the band gap energy of oxide semiconductors. Since this photochemical reaction occurs only on semiconductors, the selective Pt deposition on SnO2 is possible. In addition, we selected methanol and formic acid as sacrificial reagents to capture electron holes for the photochemical reactions. Nanostructure of the obtained electrocatalysts was observed by STEM. We also made ICP analysis to quantify Pt loading. Electrochemical characterization of these electrocatalysts was carried out by the half-cell measurements. Electrochemical surface area (ESCA) was measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV), and oxidation reduction reaction (ORR) activity was derived from kinetically controlled current density (ik ) after the rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurement. Results and discussion STEM image of Pt/SnO2/VGCF-H prepared by irradiating ultraviolet (UV) light for 30 minutes in methanol is shown in Figure 1. This micrograph shows Pt particles deposited with a diameter of about 1nm on SnO2 surface. Although the Pt loading increased with UV irradiation time, the Pt particle diameter increased and ECSA tended to decrease. When formic acid was used, the photochemical reaction was promoted, and more Pt was deposited with the same UV irradiation time, compared with methanol. We have succeeded to homogeneously coat Pt on the oxide support and to improve both ECSA and mass activity by shortening the UV irradiation time.